Editorial: Toward better school funding

For some time, Patrick has been talking in vague terms about “taking education reform to the next level.” In the campaign, he spoke often about “educating the whole child.”

Patrick says he may have an education proposal as early as next month.

Any serious proposal will have to cover the issue of financing education, particularly the reliance on property taxes as the primary source of school funding.

House Speaker Sal DiMasi has, so far, thwarted Gov. Patrick’s proposal for local option taxes on meals and hotel rooms. Patrick’s attempt to close a loophole through which telecommunications companies avoid paying an estimated $78 million in local property taxes is being resisted by the telecoms, and his package of reforms that would allow cities and towns to save money on benefits is meeting resistance from public employee unions and their friends in the Legislature.

Those are all efforts worth fighting for, and we hope Gov. Patrick hasn’t given up. But the governor may have a bigger idea waiting in the wings.

For some time, Patrick has been talking in vague terms about “taking education reform to the next level.” In the campaign, he spoke often about “educating the whole child.”

Patrick says he may have an education proposal as early as next month.

Any serious proposal will have to cover the issue of financing education, particularly the reliance on property taxes as the primary source of school funding.

The formula by which state school aid is distributed is “broken,” Gov. Patrick told a meeting of school officials last week. That’s not news for most North Shore cities, many of which for years have been shortchanged by the complex and inequitable Chapter 70 formula. But it’s good to hear a governor talk seriously about fixing it.

Equally refreshing are the supportive noises coming from legislative leaders who in previous years have been reluctant to do more than tinker with the formula.

“I’m just not satisfied that the formula works, that the combination of state aid and property tax is enough,” Gov. Patrick said later in the week.

That, too, is encouraging.

The property tax is regressive and inefficient. It bears no relation to the payer’s ability to afford it. It pits parents against senior citizens. It encourages municipalities to make bad land-use decisions, discouraging new housing for families in favor of over-55 developments, which one former legislator dubbed “vasectomy housing.” And property taxes simply cannot keep up with the needs of most school systems.

Every state has a different method of paying for education, and Patrick says his administration is studying them for alternatives to Massachusetts’ current system.

“It’s not just new dollars we need, it’s new ideas,” he said.

We hope he finds those new ideas, and that they get a fair hearing on Beacon Hill.